HP Innovation Journal Issue 10: Fall 2018 | Page 68

In 2016, while interning with HP’s Immersive Experiences
Lab, I worked with lab members Hiroshi Horii, Kevin
Smathers and Mithra Vankipuram to explore the problem
of keeping an immersed user aware of the passage of time.
Our proposed solution included using the HP VR backpack
to provide haptic cues to the immersed user. Cues including
shoulder taps, periodic buzzes and wind gusts were integrated
into the backpack and experimented with. Such explorations
led to the realization that visual and auditory cues—not just
tactile ones—could be utilized to increase the physical and
digital awareness of an immersed user. So, in 2017, while still
a student at Georgia Tech, I conducted a study to understand
what these cues should look like, sound like and feel like. It
was a participatory study where many VR designers were
invited to come and design solutions. Together we came
up with many unique prototypes. For example, if you are
immersed in VR and I walk around you, then my footsteps
can be revealed inside VR through footmarks, foot sounds and
left-right vibrations.
by controller vibrations can let you know that you are
receiving that phone call. In essence, all we are trying to do
is transfer some bits of information from the real, physical
reality to the virtually created reality, thus connecting the
two worlds. With several such notification prototypes, we
conducted a study with 16 participants and found that purely
visual notifications are not noticeable in VR, whereas audio
is very good at attracting attention. Haptic vibrations in the
handheld controllers need to be used selectively and with
unique patterns so that they do not confuse users.
Intuitively, we can argue that, since VR is already very
visually engaging, notifications perform better if they do not
completely rely on the visual channel. Our ears in real life are
very well suited to locating sound sources. Hence, even in VR,
audio serves as an excellent modality to make people turn and
look and grab their attention. The results of our study have
been published as a journal paper titled NotifiVR 1 at the IEEE
VR 2018 conference that was held in Reutlingen, Germany,
in March.
Similarly, imagine you are engrossed in a VR design session
and receive a very important call that you do not want to
miss. A virtual pop-up near your VR controller accompanied
FINAL THOUGHTS
It is a rather interesting time to be in the VR industry.
As the technology progresses, we look forward to a
time when VR will be more accessible, when we won’t
have to put on the heavy headset, when we will have
unconstrained motion in VR, and when we will be able
to touch, feel and manipulate virtual objects. I will
constantly be looking for efficient and effective ways in
which we can keep ourselves grounded in reality while
being immersed in an alternate world.
1 S. Ghosh et al., “NotifiVR: Exploring Interruptions and Notifications in
Virtual Reality,” in IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer
Graphics, vol. 24, no. 4, pp. 1447-1456, April 2018.
Innovation Journal Issue Ten